The high demands she made of her ideal hero, the man she might marry, give one the idea that there is a certain amount of autobiography in this volume, for no doubt ideals ranged high in the home of Dostoieffsky. It is strange, however, that the question of selfishness and unselfishness does not arise in this enthralling study of an unsatisfied soul. Dostoieffsky himself was never tired of a certain Gospel sentence, the thought of which might have given calm to Irene: “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit.” The whole book, however, has a haunting suggestion of Dostoieffsky—the ghost of the father is somewhere about. This poor Russian woman has, however, lost herself in going to Rome. One sees how much happier she would have been if she had remained at home. It is common in Russians to go into ecstasy about Italy when they see it first. “In Italy, amidst the brilliance and magnificence of Nature, in the magnificent chaos of cities buzzing with automobiles, humming with factories, you feel at least that Man is not losing himself; you feel he is the master, the centre. But in Moscow …” wrote Gorky, another unhappy exile; and it is a characteristic expression. The exile admires the West, but he must return to Russia. A word should be said as to the discussion of the relative merits or demerits of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. It is not very competently handled by the authoress, but there is at least one most effective comment on ecclesiasticism as such: “In your place I would go a little further still,” exclaimed Irene’s inner soul with malicious sarcasm. “I would destroy every New Testament in the world, except one—and that one I would put in a golden, jewel-studded box, and would bury it deep in the earth, forbidding its disinterment on pain of death. Over it, I would build a splendid golden shrine, and in this shrine I would celebrate night and day magnificent services with gorgeous processions. That would be entirely in accordance with the spirit of your Christianity.” And she yearns for a Christianity freed from the prison walls of churches and forms. Irene, however, thinks that if the Orthodox Russian Church elected a Patriarch it might recover its ancient power, and utter a “new word.” And there once more we see vaguely the ghost of Dostoieffsky. The great Russian, however, would not have spoken so kindly of the Roman Church (which he regarded as a sort of political conspiracy against Christianity). STEPHEN GRAHAM. LONDON, _April, 1916_. THE EMIGRANT I Il n’y a qu’un héroisme au monde: c’est de voir le monde tel qu’il est—et de l’aimer.—ROMAIN ROLLAND.